


That’s Where The Butterflies Came From

by Everyoneisheretoday5



Category: Butterfly Soup (Visual Novel)
Genre: Akarsha is Akarsha, But Noelle has a lot of them so it’s hard, Denial of Feelings, F/F, Marriage, Pining, Scene Re-Writes, Tw for mentions of suicidal thinking, because Diya is pretty much Min-sexual and that’s it, charcater study of sorts?, diya is oblivious, the Diya/Noelle is onesided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27395785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everyoneisheretoday5/pseuds/Everyoneisheretoday5
Summary: Noelle reflects on things unsaid.
Relationships: Akarsha/Noelle (Butterfly Soup), Diya/Min-seo (Butterfly Soup), Diya/Noelle (Butterfly Soup)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	That’s Where The Butterflies Came From

**Author's Note:**

> Holy crow I really made this into 6000 words. Woah.

Noelle prides herself on being the best. 

Perfect grades, hard and well earned. A long braid that she has learned to do herself, the heavy weight hanging at the back of her head and trailing down her shoulder and onto her chest. Perfect posture, straight, and tall and menacing. 

She is not weak. She does not give in to anything, not even her own feelings. 

Well… she tries not to at least. But sometimes, it’s hard. Infuriatingly so. But she can’t bring herself to be mad at the shy girl who has followed her around since kindergarten. 

She’s deaf in one ear, so Noelle stands on the left side so she can hear. She doesn’t like presentations, so Noelle decides to be her study partner and presents for her while she flips the slides. The girl will eat whatever leftovers that Noelle doesn’t like, (with the exception of beef) much like the start of thier friendship with the Krispy Kreme donuts. 

She would do anything for her.

She knew that back when they were little… and she knows that now. 

———

Noelle is tired. Extremely exhausted. She walks into school that morning with dark circles under her eyes, her back threatening to bend, her head pounding. Her nose feels stuffy. It won’t go away.

But she tries anyways. Uttering a complaint about her health to her mother yielded no results except a small cup of cold medicine and a shove out the door with her lunchbox and backpack. She can’t afford to miss a day.

Sunshine incarnate is waiting for her as she slowly steps up the school, eyes bright and worried. 

“Noelle, what’s wrong?” She says softly, staring at her.

Noelle closes her eyes for a second, fighting against the headache that’s only becoming worse due to the amount of students milling around and talking. “I’m fine, Diya. I’m just tired.” 

“You don’t look fine,” Diya says, stepping closer and inspecting Noelle’s appearance. Noelle would usually step back, but she isn’t in the mood to care. A gentle hand feels her forehead, warm against the burning heat of Noelle’s skin, and she hears Diya take in a deep breath. She’s anxious. 

“It’s okay. Telling body temperature by touch is usually highly inaccurate. I’m sure I am in perfectly good health,” she says, in order to reassure the curly haired girl, even as her surroundings seem to blur. Is she dizzy? What’s happening? _ I can’t-  _

Without her control, her knees buckle, and Diya rushes to catch her, her arms looping around the taller girl’s (for now) waist with ease, and pulling her back up. She adjusts Noelle’s arm, so it’s flopped over Diya’s shoulder. 

Anxiety sets in the pit of Noelle’s stomach. She has to get to class. She can’t let this horrible feeling stop her. Her grades depend on it. She tries to wrestle herself from Diya’s grip but fails, mostly because she’s so weak, even when she isn’t sick. 

“Noelle, I have to take you to the nurses office. You can’t- you can’t do anything like this,” Diya whispers, tightening her grip around her. Noelle shakes her head and then regrets it, as it feels as though someone is trying to hammer her brain.

“ _ No-  _ Diya, you don’t understand, I have to get to class!” Noelle leans slightly into Diya as she says this, her brain filling up with fog. “Even if it’s just attendance…” 

_ 2nd grade shouldn’t be this hard… _

Diya gives her a pitying look, but Noelle knows that Diya knows that arguing isn’t going to get her anywhere. Although Diya has the upper hand in strength and puppy-dog eyes, Noelle’s force of mind is worth more. 

The school bell rings, and Noelle can see students heading inside through bleary eyes. She tries to take a step forward without Diya, but Diya follows her lead, supporting her. 

“I’ll just help you to your classes, okay?” She says softly. Something about the pure concern and caring in her voice makes Noelle melt a little on the inside, but she pushes it down, words from her mother repeating in her head. She can’t let unnecessary emotions get in the way. If there’s no point to them, they don’t need to exist. “But when you get home, you should rest.” 

Noelle nods, although she doubts her ability to do as Diya says, knowing she still has half a workbook to do at home. Maybe her pure exhaustion will knock her out when she gets to her house though. Or maybe her condition will improve over the course of the day. 

Diya shifts her grip, and they walk off to class together, her… friend… supporting her as they go. 

———

Noelle doesn’t remember much after that morning. 

Her memories are hazy and smoky, but she remembers the feel of Diya’s soft sweatshirt, and the vague sound of her voice as she mumbled to Noelle as they passed in between classes. 

She remembers the drone of the teachers, the cold wood of her door as Diya walked her home and dropped her off, and the warmth in her chest as she laid down on her bed, head full of fuzzy thoughts about Diya that she couldn’t bother to push away. All gentle hugs and soft, kind words, and golden-yellow eyes that stare gently at her. 

Later, when she wakes up with the sun no longer in the sky, room dark and unwelcoming, and nothing left of her illness except a slight ache in her skull, she ignores those thoughts.

She gets up, turns on the lights, and opens her latest workbook, letting the problems and words and numbers take over her brain, burying the memory of them deep down where she won’t be bothered to look at them again. 

There is no need for them to be remembered. 

———

_ “I’ve never seen you this excited over someone before. They must really be something.”  _

———

Noelle knows as soon as Min takes a step towards her, that she doesn’t like her.

She circles around Noelle like a wolf and like she’s prey, eyeing her, face full of malice as soon as she sees the snake plushie that Diya had given her minutes before. Noelle holds the tail carefully off the ground, so that it doesn’t get dirty. 

She feels a need to preserve it. 

(The warm feelings are increasing around Diya, she notes. Noelle keeps pushing them down, day after day after day, but it’s getting hard to keep up when almost everything that Diya does makes Noelle feel absurdly fond and gooey.) 

(It’s illogical. It frustrates her.) 

She is sharp, like the blades that she carries around, as Noelle later learns.

“So you’re Diya’s best friend… you… you giraffe.” 

She is angry, and small, and tough. Quite the opposite of Diya, except for the last part, and  _ very  _ unlike Noelle. Noelle would never cut her hair like that. She wouldn’t wear some ridiculous sweater with some cars on it either. And she certainly wouldn’t try directly insulting someone on the first meeting without having spoken a word to them before. 

“What?...” 

Diya has been standing next to Noelle this entire time with the sweetest look on her face.  _ Bless her soul.  _ She doesn’t seem to be affected by how abrasive this girl is, just enraptured. 

Noelle is confused. And something rises in her throat, but… she pushes it back down as usual. There’s no time for that nonsense. 

“I’LL FIGHT YOU!” 

A bolt of fear would have gone through Noelle if Min wasn’t so tiny and weirdly non-threatening. And if there was a reason for this odd behavior.

“Excuse me?!” She’s still trying to be neutral, and nice as she can, for Diya’s sake, although her patience is quickly waning. If Diya likes this person, then… shouldn’t she?

“There can only be one of us! So we have to duel. I’ll beat you in hand-to-hand combat.”

_ Oh no.  _

This is completely ridiculous. In any other situation, Noelle would have stepped in front of Diya (although she is well-aware that Diya can hold her own) and protected her with whatever she had. But what is she suposed to do here? If Diya isn’t being threatened...

Diya is still standing there, although now concern is painted on her face in little increments. 

Noelle doesn’t know how to do hand-to-hand combat.

“What?! No!” 

Panic is rising in her chest. Why is Min so aggresive? Why can’t she just leave her be? If they both like Diya ( _ she better like Diya)  _ then can’t they-

“Starting in 3!!! 2!!! 1!!!”

“I ALREADY SAID NO!” 

The short haired girl with the hot wheels sweatshirt charges at her.

Diya steps forward. 

———

_ “What was that all about? What an idiot. What does Diya see in someone that dumb? I don’t understand…” _

_ —— _

Dejected, Noelle clings onto Snakey, burying her face in the soft polyester.

She doesn’t know whether or not to process her thoughts. 

She tries valiantly, over and over again to tamp down whatever emotions she’s feeling, but like before, it’s getting almost impossible.

She feels like crying.

She just wants to see Diya. She just wants to be able to hang out with her outside of school. She’s held resentment towards her textbooks before, but not this much. She tries her hardest, and she moves fast and quickly, like she trained herself to, but there is no reward at the end of the finish line, not even a kind word or an opportunity, just another race to run. 

Even if she finishes first. 

Her mother’s words echo in her head.  _ Fun is an illusion.  _

If fun is an illusion, then there is no point to be sad over this. There is no need to feel as though she needs to spend more time with Diya. There is only the goal of her grades, and being better than everyone else, because that’s all there is.

Even if the lump in her throat that has been there since Diya gave her the snake plushie is there. Even if it won’t go away. 

Even if she feels… jealous… of Min.

That’s unnecessary.

She stamps it back down.

——-

  
  


Through some miracle of Diya’s parents being persuasive and wanting thier daughter to spend time with someone outside of school, Noelle has ended up sleeping over at Diya’s house. (According to Diya, Min was out of the question.) 

She is buzzing with excitement.  _ Finally!! I get to hang out with her!!  _ Butterflies swirl in her stomach, and she hasn’t figured out how to tamp those down, so she just ignores them. 

She waits at the door while her mother drives off, holding a backpack with a toothbrush, a workbook (“because if you have any free time…” her mother said) some clothes, and 10 dollars, just in case. Noelle added some coloring supplies to the list, because she knows that Diya might like it for drawing dogs. She loves dogs.

Noelle pricks up as she hears a small ruckus coming from inside the house, presumably someone running down the stairs at top speed. The door opens, and there stands Diya, beaming, hair slightly mussed up.

“Noelle!!!” She bounces on the balls of her feet, and then looks behind her and into the hosue for a second. Noelle peers inside, and sees Diya’s parents give a silent nod. Hope rises in her chest, and then Diya waves her inside excitedly, taking her wrist and leading her upstairs.

——

Noelle makes a decision that night.

She’s going to let herself feel things. For now. At the end of the sleepover, it’s back to pushing down everything, and concentrating on what needs to be done. 

But when she’s with Diya, and there’s no obscure threat hanging over her head, it’s okay. 

——-

They eat pizza on the floor of Diya’s room.

Diya’s room is filled to the brim with baseball trophies and pictures of dogs and stuffed animals, so much warmer and welcoming than Noelle’s, where the only things are a desk, some awards she’s not allowed to touch, and completed workbooks. Noelle feels strange being in there, but Diya doesn’t mind at all, showing her everything, and explaining it’s origins.

_ She smiles so much, it’s…  _ Noelle searches for the words silently, watching as Diya explains how Dobermans aren’t actually as scary as they look. There’s that light in her eyes again, twinkling.  _...Diya.  _

Although she’s usually quiet while at school, when she talks about things she likes, she’s like a little chatterbox, and Noelle listens patiently, accidentally watching how her hair curls instead of hearing her words for a second, but she snaps herself to the present with a small smile, actually feeling amused at herself this time.

Once while they are sitting on the floor and talking about various things, Diya mentions romance. She doesn’t know much about it, except that it’s supposed to be this magical thing, and like anxiety, but good somehow.

“...Like maybe I’ll meet some boy, and then I’ll fall in love with him, and we’ll get married. It’s weird, but I guess that’s how it works. It sounds fun.”

Noelle questions her feelings towards Diya for a second, wondering if that’s what they could be…romantic, but no.

According to all definitions she’s ever seen, it’s between a boy and a girl.

So everything warm and fuzzy that happens in her chest when Diya is around must be purely platonic, Noelle thinks. That would explain it. Diya is an amazing friend. Noelle’s never had a friend before her, so how could she compare it to anything else anyways? 

If it’s platonic, she can feel it.

She at least hopes so.

—— 

“Noelle, I think your braid is coming undone.” 

Diya leans against her, warm and grounding. Noelle feels slightly sleepy, as the sun has gone down and the two of them have just been talking and laughing for hours. The butterflies still haven’t gone away, and Noelle lets them stay. 

“Hm?...” Noelle picks up the end of her braid and peers at it. Indeed, the hair that used to be neatly packed into what looks like 2 overlapping rows but is actually three is sticking out all over the place. She had done her hair that morning as usual, but over the course of the day, she guessed it had just fallen apart. “Well...guess I’ll have to redo it then.” 

Before Noelle can reach for her elastic, Diya stops her, putting her hand on Noelle’s. Noelle wants to hold it. She doesn’t. 

“Can I do it?” 

“Do you know how to?...” she asks. She wasn’t aware of Diya knowing how to braid hair at any point, but if she messes up, she’ll still wear it. (She’ll fix it when she gets home of course, but…) 

Diya nods, and Noelle gives her a small smile as Diya shifts over to sit in front of her. “Okay.”

Noelle sits still and quiet as Diya gently takes out her braid and combs through her hair with her fingers. Noelle notices that Diya’s wrist is almost sharp, the bone sticking out quite a bit, and it’s almost like the rest of her, lean and muscular from how athletic she is.

Noelle shifts her head a little to allow Diya to take out the rest of her braid at the back of her head. Diya leans closer.

Noelle closes her eyes, trusting Diya enough not to look. She knows that she’s very close, her arm resting on Noelle’s shoulder, her breath ghosting next to Noelle’s ear. 

Once she feels that Diya has un-braided her hair, she shakes her head a little and looks up-

The world stops.

The two girls stare at each other for a second, wide eyed. They’re not sure what they’re doing, or how exactly it happened, but they know it’s probably not something they should be doing. Diya looks terrified, fear and confusion reflected in her golden eyes. 

Noelle’s heart is thudding in her chest, so much she can almost hear it. She doesn’t know what to do, so she freezes. She can see exactly how long Diya’s eyelashes are. Her eyes are even prettier up close. 

Diya tears back, clasping her hand over her mouth. 

Noelle does the same, the mandatory thought of  _ unsanitary, unsanitary, unsanitary  _ repeating in her head. Her face is bright red.

A tense silence hangs between them for a couple seconds, Noelle’s mind backpedaling and twisting and turning in a million directions. Despite how much she studies, she could have never prepared for this. 

A thought hits her right in the heart as she notices that Diya is shaking, trembling like she has to talk to a teacher in class.

_ What if Diya hates me? _

All of the little things that she’s done, all the things she’s memorized about Diya, come crumbling down before her as she realizes. The way that Diya fidgets with her sweatshirt. The face that Diya makes when she’s annoyed. Her distaste for bittermelon, her bias towards Pomeranians. 

_ No no no no no no- _

She can’t let some stupid accident ruin what they have.

She can’t.

Diya is all she has.

“Diya, I’m- I’m sorry!” She says, voice more vulnerable and scared than she would like. She can’t help it though. She crawls carefully towards Diya, cautiously, but then stops herself, fraught with indecision. “I’m sorry- for whatever the heck that was. I didn’t mean to do that, honest.” 

Diya slowly takes her hand off her mouth, still looking at her with something that’s a mix of apprehension and fear. “You kissed me.” 

Her voice sounds like she’s trying to say it as a statement, pure and true, but it’s lined at the edges with something Noelle can’t define.

_ That’s what it’s called?  _

“I know… I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were that close,” Noelle says softly. She wonders if Diya will still braid her hair despite the mishap.  _ Probably not. _

Another tense silence. 

Noelle pushes down any regret towards her future actions.

“It’s okay- we can just forget about it. Pretend it never happened.”

She finds herself fidgeting with the loose stands of her hair. It’s falling over her shoulders and down her back. She’s not used to it. 

Diya nods, and takes a deep breath, slowly sitting up.

“Yeah. Let’s just forget about it.”

——-

Noelle is screwed.

The years pass without another mention. She never thinks on her feelings, never acts on them, and yet they’re still persistently there, a warm feeling in her chest whenever Diya appears in her peripheral vision. 

Min-seo moves away, and Diya is down in the dumps for a week. Min always was overly aggressive to Noelle, throwing insults and yelling at her, but apparently due to Diya, she never laid a finger on Noelle again.

Guess that’s one thing they have in common. 

Noelle tries her best to support Diya after Min moves, and eventually, life continues on as normal.

Go to school.

See Diya.

Feel those butterflies.

Ignore them.

Year after year after year.

Her and Diya have many more experiences over the years. Diya comforts Noelle on the phone when she cries over her parents getting her workbooks instead of stuff she wanted for Christmas. Noelle stands up for Diya when she gets picked on by some jerks. Diya helps Noelle throw up into a trash can after she nearly drowns at swimming school. Noelle helps Diya after she plays dead in front of someone new for the hundredth time out of anxiety. 

Diya grows taller and stronger than Noelle, and Noelle stays the same. Same old braid, same old attitude, although she lets loose a little around Diya because she trusts her enough. 

That’s just how her friendship with Diya works. 

——-

_ “Don’t do that. I like being alive at the same time as you.” _

_ “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me!” _

_ “Then I take it back.” _

——-

And then she meets Akarsha. 

——

Akarsha is always in her face. She never stops. It frustrates Noelle to no end.

First she presses a magnet to Noelle’s forehead. Then the pranks start.

One day when she had met Diya at the school at 8 AM sharp as usual, there was an extra person standing next to her, about the same height as Noelle from the looks of it. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into two messy small buns, and her skin was slightly darker than Diya’s. She was wearing a ridiculously bright windbreaker and- were those  _ flip flops?!! _

Diya didn’t seem very pleased with her presence.

And it was no wonder. Akarsha would not  _ shut up.  _ She kept asking unnecessary questions, saying stuff like “wassup my homies, did ya miss me” and making anime references, and the only reason that Diya hung out with her is because their parents forced them to walk to school together.

And when she saw Noelle walking stiffly over to the two of them, she pulled a magnet out of her pocket and pressed it to Noelle’s forehead, declaring that she was a robot.

You can imagine how that went down.

One day Noelle opened her locker (that her and Diya shared) with a sticky note titled “BOOB” on it. 

“...what?!”

She was not amused.

She thought it was a one-time thing, but the next day, she found the same kind of sticky note  _ inside her backpack  _ with the same exact word, and she had to bite her cheek to stop herself from screaming. Why “boob” specifically?! What was the point? 

This continued for a week, the sticky-notes appearing in various places where she could see them. 

When one appeared in the personal book she was reading, she lost her patience, stood up holding the post-it note, and yelled, “WHO IS DOING THIS?!!” In the middle of class.

It was not a proud moment. 

She was still petty though, so when the teacher asked her to sit down, she hissed loudly, “I KNOW YOU’RE WATCHING THIS YOU IMMATURE CRETIN. I WILL FIND YOU AND I WILL DESTROY YOU.” 

Later, Noelle learned that was the moment Akarsha decided to be friends with her. She was a tiny bit annoyed to learn that she was the prankster, but at that point, it didn’t really matter to her anymore.

And so, Akarsha stuck around, annoying her endlessly. 

...or at least that’s what Noelle expected.

While Akarsha  _ was  _ annoying, she was also funny, and Noelle often had to keep herself from snickering at Akarsha’s antics, like when she tried to do the pull-a-dime-from-your-ear trick with Diya and failed.  _ Then _ she tried valiantly to cover it up, claiming that Diya’s head was empty, and that’s why she had to fake it.

No one was fooled, but Noelle hid her smile behind her hand as she pretended to scold Akarsha for everything she got wrong.

And one day, she fell very sick again, and much in the fashion of 2nd grade, Diya ended up having to hold her up. 

But this time, both Diya and Akarsha were determined to not let her go to class.

Noelle was deeply worried that Akarsha would do something that would get her arrested as she disappeared in the crowd of students, Noelle feeling the familiar embarrassment and warmth from hanging out with Diya, this time with Diya determined to have Noelle’s head resting on her thighs for whatever reason. 

When the fire alarm rang and started playing the Super Mario Bros theme, that’s when Noelle knew exactly what Akarsha did.

_ Such an idiot… I lo- I hope she doesn’t get in trouble for this. _

Noelle feels a warmth swell in her chest at the thought of Akarsha hacking the speakers, and the sight of her infectious grin, even as she has her arms looped loosely around Diya’s neck. She knows what this is.

_ Oh no. _

  
  
  


Of course, Akarsha ruins the moment by slapping Noelle with her own hand minutes later, but that’s a regular thing. 

Noelle is used to it.

———

_ “USE YOUR HEAD YOU CLOWN! IF YOU DIE I’LL KILL YOU!” _

_ ——— _

Freshman year, the same year that she meets Akarsha, Min-seo comes  _ back.  _

She’s still herself. Small. Aggressive. Loud. Infuriating. And this time, she has a leather jacket, and a butterfly knife that she knows how to use, scarily enough.

After reluctantly following Diya to a baseball club meeting with Akarsha, and Diya getting so anxious doing the icebreakers that she ran away (as is a nervous habit of hers) Noelle runs to the locker room and encounters her, along with a  _ very  _ flustered looking Diya. 

Apparently, Diya’s… whatever the heck she has going on with Min has lasted the 5 years spent apart. Noelle doesn’t know how to feel about that, or how Min won’t harm her yet keeps whispering vaguely threatening things into her ear the entire time like “I hate you more than the stringy things on bananas.” 

...And commenting on how Diya is “out of her league” and how Min “won’t lose to her.”

Noelle doesn’t know what she means. Sure, she feels weird things around Diya. That means nothing. It’s annoying, but it’s nothing. Min has no idea what she’s talking about.

But then Akarsha walks in, and because she doesn’t know Min, and she doesn’t know how to act around her, Min slams her against a wall for saying she’s edgy and yells “YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?!”

Akarsha mutters in awe, “woah…not gonna lie, if you were taller this would actually be pretty hot,” and then Min punches her in the face.

Noelle  _ definitely  _ knows how she feels now.

All she can do is stand there, for fear what might happen if she intervenes. She’s so weak, she can’t even open a water bottle by herself, let alone wrestle Min off of Akarsha. So Diya does it instead, throwing Min and her tiny 5’1 body across the room and pleading for her to stop.

Min argues with Diya for a second, while Akarsha asks whether anyone is going to tell her what the hell is going on, in confusion. 

When Min charges towards her, Akarsha screams and kicks off her flip flop. It hits Min in the face.

Min tackles her to the ground shouting and yelling.

Her hands close around Akarsha’s neck.

——

Needless to say, the baseball team is all perfectly fine after that, much to Noelle’s relief.

——-

“I WANT TO DIE! KILL ME!”

Noelle has been listening outside the auditorium for the past 45 seconds, because she doesn’t want to be associated with Akarsha’s yelling, and that sentence shocks her to the bone. They’re supposed to be looking for Diya and Min. 

Akarsha had yelled something about grades, stress, and now  _ this,  _ and while Noelle had suspected something had been going on from Akarsha’s casual remarks about the possibility of ending herself, (like the stabbing comment on the day that Min came back) she doesn’t know what to do. 

She doesn’t know whether to go into the auditorium and demand she explain, or...comfort her, or whatever you’re supposed to do when someone says they want to die. She doesn’t know.  _ She doesn’t know.  _ It’s an unfamiliar feeling and she doesn’t know how to deal with it.

She doesn’t want Akarsha to die. She’ll do anything to stop her from offing herself, but in this second, she just...

She stands there outside the auditorium, mind fraught with indecision, when she hears a second voice.

“What’re you doing??”

It’s Min. Her and Akarsha have been searching for her for the past 10 minutes.

Maybe she’ll know what to do. 

And when the time comes and Noelle is actually prepared to handle a subject she previously knew nothing about, she’ll confront Akarsha about it. 

She wants to help her. And she will.

She just has to figure out how. 

——-

Diya has been acting strange as of late. Akarsha makes comments about it all the time. Min-seo is glaringly obvious.

Still, her and Min-seo go up to yell at Hayden together when he nearly hits Diya in the head with a baseball. Noelle can’t say he didn’t deserve it. 

It might be the first time her and Min agree on something. 

——-

_ Noelle’s most recent Google searches: _

  * _Why does she act weird around her_



  * _Can two girls like each other_



  * _Can two girls be romantically involved_



  * _Homosexuality_



  * _Lesbians_



——-

  
  


From what Akarsha has been saying, and the ridiculously dorky way that Mina acts around Diya, (as well as how flustered Diya gets around Min… which surprisingly doesn’t affect Noelle as much as she- which surprisingly doesn’t affect Diya’s performance in baseball) Noelle should have seen this coming.

Still, she’s a little surprised when Min straight up crawls onto the table and kisses Diya. Akarsha whoops and hollers annoyingly, Noelle looks away, face burning in embarrassment.

At least she gave Min a cheat sheet so Diya didn’t have a horrible time.

(If Min hurts Diya, Noelle  _ will  _ end her. Maybe not kill her, but her life will certainly be ruined. She’ll make sure of it.)

And she admitted she liked Akarsha as a friend. 

Purely as that.

Of course, she knows Akarsha isn’t going to let her live it down, but she can deal with that. She admitted to tolerating Min too, but that’s another matter.

Min pulls away over Akarsha’s yelling and whooping, and Noelle watches from in between her fingers and sunglasses. They’re having some sappy conversation, Noelle can be sure of that, and then Diya is kissing Min’s cheek. 

_ Jesus Christ, why did I agree to spy on them with Akarsha…  _

She groans internally. She doesn’t like sappy stuff, especially when it involves her friends, and especially Diya.

Her mind flits back to that night in 3rd grade, but knowing that it’s not worth anything now, she pushes it away again. It’s surprisingly easy. 

And then she realizes that the table…

Noelle gets up quickly and speed walks over to them, still in some gushy embrace. 

“The table, it’s…”

Min shouts at her to go away, and before Noelle can finish her last sentence, the table leg snaps beneath Min’s weight, and she falls to the floor, attracting the attention of everyone in the restaurant.

Great.

——-

Diya and Min are banned permanently from the Snowcastle.

Noelle says Diya doesn’t deserve to be. Akarsha just laughs.

——-

_ “Well… why not date someone here instead?” _

——-

Senior year, Noelle is holding hands with Akarsha under the table at a park. She’s not sure how she got to this point, but apparently her and Akarsha are dating now.

Noelle did some research, and she’s figured out that she’s a lesbian. 

Akarsha asked her out in a GameStop.

Everything makes so much more sense. 

When Diya and Min stand up from the picnic table to go take a walk, (they’ve been together all these years, quite unsurprisingly) Akarsha scoots a little closer to Noelle and raises her eyebrows, smirking.

“What do you want?” Noelle asks, with faux annoyance. There’s a hint of a smile on her face, and her heart is beating rather fast. She’s grown accustomed to it around Akarsha. 

And then Akarsha leans in rather close… very close… 

And boops her nose.

“Gotcha!” She says, smirking. She lets go of Noelle’s hand and stumbles clumsily over the bench as she runs away, prompting Noelle to run after her with a grin on her face that she doesn’t know how to suppress. 

She’s learning how to admit that she’s happy. 

——-

_ “Well… I guess Diya could have chosen someone worse.” _

——-

Diya and Min’s wedding is… well,  _ amazing  _ obviously. 

Noelle is incredibly happy to see her two friends finally tie the knot. Whether or not she was slightly salty about their relations highschool doesn’t matter right now. It’s all in the past, and right now she’s high on everyone’s joy as well as her own.

Sure, the celebration has a few nuances to it, such as Akarsha playing anime openings for the beginning because  _ someone  _ (Min-seo) decided to make her the DJ, and there’s an awkward moment as the guests realize that Min’s parents didn’t show up to do the toast, but Jun fills in instead, and Noelle can see Hayden in the audience beaming with him with pride. 

Min and Diya get  _ way  _ too into kissing during the ceremony, and Noelle has to cough to remind them that there are children there. Akarsha snickers from beside her, and Noelle wraps an arm around her shoulder.

(Noelle still won’t dance with her due to the anxiety of everyone watching them despite Akarsha shining the spotlight on her the entire night for no reason, but ti’s all in good fun. They know each other well enough to know their reasons.) 

Noelle does the couple’s slideshow instead of Akarsha for the fear of her playing obscene YouTube videos, and while maybe her presentation was a little… critical… she still gets the point across that Min and Diya are practically made for eachother, and they’ve stuck up for each other and stood by the other’s side no matter what has happened. 

Noelle is proud of them. 

She’s proud of Diya especially. 

Sure, no one’s  _ perfect,  _ but Min is truly the best choice that Diya could have. Noelle knows that, and she takes it in stride.

The best part of the night however, is when everyone’s leaving and the sun has set, and Akarsha bends down in her half suit, half dress and pulls a ring box out of her pocket.

She can’t believe her eyes. 

“Noelle, Frenchman, girlfriend, honey on chicken nuggets, light of my mortal life, will you marry me?”

She says yes, of course.

——

She and Akarsha sit in their living room on the couch, curled up next to each other in a peaceful silence. The lights are off, due to it being winter and time passing more quickly than Noelle thought it would, but she doesn’t care much about the darkness. She can still see Akarsha, who is half asleep on her shoulder as Noelle combs through her hair. She usually doesn’t have it up when she’s at home.

Noelle feels safe. Akarsha is here. She’s here. There’s no danger, not from parents, from grades, or even their own minds. They’re okay. Her wife is warm and comforting, a welcome weight against her side. 

Akarsha nuzzles into her a little and mumbles, “did you ever have a crush on anyone before you met me?”Her eyes are closed. 

Noelle reflects on that for a second. And she immediately has an answer, much to her embarrassment.

“...Diya.” 

“Yeah we all know Diya’s ho-“ Akarsha cuts herself off mid-sentence and sits up, cheekily grinning at Noelle in that signature way, even though it’s obvious how sleepy she is. “Wait, you're serious??”

Noelle stays silent, a guilty look on her face, and Akarsha starts snickering, burying her face in Noelle’s shoulder as she laughs. Noelle feels warm. 

“Well- if it makes you feel any better, I’ve thought that Min was hot at least a couple times,” she says. Then she gets the facial expression that tells Noelle that Akarsha is about to tell her something she might not want to hear, and she says “and Min told me she considered kissing you once.”

If Noelle was drinking water, she definitely would have done a spit take. 

“ _ What- “  _

“Yeah!! We were hanging out one day and they go-“ (Akarsha does her best to imitate Min by sounding gruff. It doesn’t work, but it’s certainly funny) “‘Y’know Noelle is actually kind of pretty. Nice that you have a crush on her. Don’t deny it- I know you do. And hey, I thought of kissing her once, so wanting-to-kiss-Noelle bros.’”

Noelle dissolves into laughter. It’s not a thing she did often when she was younger, but after spending more time with Akarsha, she finds it easier and easier. Akarsha beams up at her, and the leans in to kiss her cheek.

Noelle turns, and accidentally ends up kissing her on the lips instead.

All’s well that ends well.

——THE END——

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for reading!! I hope you enjoyed!! 
> 
> CANON FACTS YOU CAN FIND ON THE WIKI  
> -Diya’s first kiss was with Noelle by accident  
> -Min has thought of kissing Noelle at least once  
> -Noelle said something along the lines of “I supose Diya could have done worse” at thier wedding, Jun held the toast, and Noelle had to cough to remind Min and Diya that children were watching  
> -that whole boob scenario  
> And probably a lot more that I can’t remember. 
> 
> Again, thank you for reading!


End file.
